El silencio del agua

Only the River Flows followed police investigator Ma Zhe (Zhu, Yilong Yilong Zhu), in the 90s China, trying to solve a murder case, with an "obvious" yet not so convincing suspect, the victim's adopted son, a man with mental illness. The movie developed into a psychological journey that was deeply intense and hard to resist. Intermingled with Ma Zhe's own life struggles, the psychological journey was painted with layers of unbelievable hues and shades, in contrast to the movie's desaturated color theme and tone. Are you saying it takes a crazy man to get a crazy man, literally?

As a neo-film nior, the movie shared many aspects of this genre. It also has absurdism and realism contrasting and complementing each other, just like the seemingly muted everyday life in the 90s which was actually during the turmoil of some of the biggest changes of China.

Bravo to Wei, Shujun Wei Shujun's cinema work, to the accuracy of a small town in 90s China, and to Zhu, Yilong Yilong Zhu's vivid portraying of a middle aged policeman dealing with madness from every aspects of his life.

In my humble opinion, a very special movie and a must-see.

Ever since the launch of the trailer, it has been a movie that I've been looking forward to and indeed it's worth the 101 mins in the cinema!

Nothing bad and you will definitely be glued to it. It is by far one of the best movie ever! On this note, I would like to specially highlight actor Zhu Yilong who played as Ma Zhe in the movie. Who would have thought that he could be so rugged and different from his usual self that always appears on screen.

Kudos to the team for making such a wonderful movie! It's definitely a MUST to watch!

I watched the red carpet live broadcast of the Cannes International Film Festival on May 20th. Zhu Yilong's appearance on the red carpet at the Cannes International Film Festival is completely different from what he saw in the movie!

Reviews from the premiere was exciting so glad I got the replay ticket on 22 May at the Cannes festival. No spoilers.

Actor Zhu Yilong was fantastic in portraiting the character Ma Zhe and gave some very powerful and mesmerizing scenes. One can feel the emotional turmoil of Ma Zhe as the storyline unfold. An amazing young and gifted actor. I look forward in checking out his other movies.

The cinematography was fabulous. Many great scenes composition and the final grading set a good tone on the mood.

The bgm blended well and compliment the movie story development.

Only the River Flows is a well made movie taking a deep dive into human nature and self reflection.

"Ma Zhe" (Zhu Yilong) engenders an almost adulatory degree of support from his team as he leads them on an investigation following the discovery of the body of the goose-rearing "Granny Four" on a remote riverside. Suspicion quickly falls on her adopted friend known simply as the "madman", but the detective is not so convinced that things are that straightforward. His ensuing task isn't helped by pressure from his ping-pong playing boss to conclude quickly and by the fact that he and his wife are expecting a baby - and that procedure is not going to be as simple as they might like. With the rain pretty much relentless throughout, he encounters some quirky local characters who seem to muddy the waters rather than offer him clarity. Clarity? Well that's an element to this story that is a bit too sparing at times. "Ma Zhe" finds his troubles gradually getting the better of him - yes, there are more bodies - and soon his own grasp on reality becomes distinctly compromised. Can he keep it together long enough to solve the crime? The film starts with the usual affirmation of the communist values of team play before entering the realms of predictable cop drama tempered with a bit of undercooked psycho-babble that Zhu Yilong tries to hard hold together. By the denouement, though, I felt way too much of the plot was contrived to try to tap into the psyche - of him and us - and it didn't really work. That said, he does well here and we do get quite a tense sense of his gradually becoming overwhelmed by the scenarios that test his usually linear style of working, thinking and living. Sadly, aside from "Ma Zhe", the characters are barely developed and director Wei Shujun seems more interested in focussing on an admittedly gritty and authentic looking peek at 1990s rural China, whilst rather abandoning the detail and characterisation of story to the sidelines as the dream sequences blur more and more the line between reality and fantasy. It does move along well enough, but I found it a bit of a meringue of a film - not much when you get into it.

Director Wei Shujun is one of the most anticipated Chinese directors at Cannes every year, because he really never disappoints. From his witty and humorous film "Striding into the Wind" which was shortlisted for the Director's Fortnight two years ago and received rave reviews at Cannes, this time he brought a different style of black film to the "A Certain Regard" section, which was like a shot in the arm, awakening the tired international critics. The film successfully adapted the work of teacher Yu Hua and had a strong Wei-style personal style, highly restoring the sense of the 90s in China, with a bleak realistic theme supplemented by magical dream segments, and sudden absurd scenes that even made the audience scream in surprise. Some of the ending segments seemed like clues deliberately left by the director, like the godly drama "The Long Season", which made me want to watch it again after seeing it. Ting shuo kan guo cai neng ping fen wo mei kan guo shi yi shi.